I'm a therapist and that fascinates people because they think I carry secrets.

If you continually diet, you are putting your body in a quasi-famine situation. It slows your metabolism down and breaks the thermostat. Diets don't work. They don't help you understand why you're eating more than your body wanted in the first place.

Consumer society tantalises us. We then try within ourselves to control the needs that are being constantly stimulated.

Bodies are becoming our personal mission to tame, extend and perfect.

The insistence that the commercialisation of the body is a fit subject for political discussion and intervention is well overdue.

Beauty has been democratised. No longer the preserve of movie stars and models but available to all. But while the invitation to beauty is welcomed, it has become not so much an option as an imperative.

Fat is a social disease, and fat is a feminist issue.